Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Young wolf killed on Trans-Canada Highway belonged to Bow Valley pack

There
are now only five members of the Bow Valley wolf pack after a yearling
was hit and killed by a vehicle early Monday near Castle Junction.

Photograph by: A Section

CALGARY
— A young wolf killed on the highway early this week was part of a well
known pack often spotted along the Bow Valley parkway in Banff National
Park.
Early Monday morning, Parks Canada
received a call from a passing motorist about a wolf being on the
Trans-Canada Highway just west of the Castle junction.

A wildlife technician was on the way to the scene when the animal got hit by another vehicle.
“If
he had arrived a few minutes sooner, he may have been able to get the
wolf off the road and behind fencing,” said Omar McDadi, a Parks Canada
spokesman for the Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay field unit.

However, the yearling wolf was hit and killed by an unknown motorist before the technician arrived.
McDadi
said it’s believed the wolf got onto the highway because the gate to a
construction yard — where equipment and asphalt is kept for the twinning
of the highway — was left open.

“There are
question marks,” he said, noting parks officials are investigating all
of the circumstances leading up to the wolf’s death.

The
wolf was one of an estimated 35 wolves in Banff National Park and
belonged to the Bow Valley wolf pack — tracked in the area by radio
collars on the alpha male and alpha female’s necks.
The
now five-member pack’s travels east of the Banff townsite through the
Bow Valley to the north end of Kootenay National Park. They are often
spotted along the Bow Valley Parkway.

“We
really regret and are saddened by the loss of this wolf,” McDadi said.
“Wolves are amazing creatures and we are lucky to have them in the
national park.
“It’s a sad day for everyone when we lose a wolf.”

Mike McIvor, of the Bow Valley Naturalists, said the wolves in the Bow Valley are significant.
“They
were wiped out at one time,” he said, noting they started showing up
again in the 1980s due to a high elk population. “They are very much
part of the ecosystem.”
McIvor said he’s disappointed to hear about another human-caused death of a wolf.

“Obviously
they’re hanging on by a pretty thin thread when they are being killed
on the railway track and the highway,” he said, noting it’s extremely
unfortunate it appears to have been linked to a moment of carelessness.
McIvor
said there should be closer monitoring, although he suggested it could
become more difficult with a reduction in parks staff this summer due to
federal budget cuts.

Starting next spring,
Parks Canada will attempt to reduce wildlife mortality by preventing
overnight traffic along the Bow Valley Parkway, from 8 p.m. until 8
a.m., between March 1 and June 25.
The
overnight driving ban on the 17-kilometre stretch of roadway, which cuts
through critical habitat for wolves, grizzly bears and moose, will give
animals free rein to move about and feed in the critical spring months
following winter hibernation.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone